Tesla To Double The Number Of Supercharger Locations In North America

Tesla plans to double the number of Supercharger locations in North America in 2017, the company revealed today in its quarterly letter to shareholders. According to the company’s website, the company has 805 Supercharger stations worldwide with a total of 5,159 chargers. Among them it has 2,636 Superchargers at 373 locations across the Mexico, Canada and United States, and began its expansion in January, planning to have twice as many locations open by the end of 2017.

Tesla said this movement is a part of its effort to rapidly expand its Supercharger network. The Supercharger is Tesla’s fast-charging station that initially used to be free for owners, but now they’ll cost a small fee for new customers. Its Supercharging network allows owners of its Model X and Model S vehicles as well as owners of future Model 3 to rapidly charge their vehicles while on long road trips, providing as much as 170 miles of range after just 30 minutes of charging. That’s a key aspect of the Tesla customer experience and extraordinarily fast for electric vehicle charging.

For comparison, Business Insider’s Matt Debord found a wall socket charged a Model S at the frosty pace of one mile per hour. A non-Supercharger, Tesla partner charging station juiced the car back to 30 miles in one hour. Tesla said it has invested hundreds of millions in the Supercharger network, mostly in the US.

The company said in its letter, “We plan to accelerate the expansion of the Supercharger network this year, starting with doubling our number of North American Supercharger locations in 2017.” Tesla contributes a map showing current Supercharger stations and those anticipated to be built in 2017. Globally, Tesla had 5,043 Supercharger connections across 790 locations as of December 31, 2016, a rise of around 10 percent from the year before.